Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

steen,'with Shobert taking' third over Scott Parker who challenged for the advancement position right down to the checkered nag. "I beat some of the strongest competition in that heat," said Graham. "Several of them could win the final, but I think our combination is spot on." c<") 00 .... 0') (Above) Ricky Graham lead. Terry Poovey early in the National. (Inset) Winner Bubba Shobert celebrate•. AMA Grand National Championship/ Camel Pro Series: Round 18 Shobert wins Indy Mile by inches By Jeck Mengus Photos by Bert Sheperd/Silver Shutter Photogrephy INDIANAPOLlS,IN,JULY 2 Texan Bubba Shobert celebrated the Fourth of July weekend with a bang as he nipped Ricky Graham and Scott Parker by inches at the finish line to score his fourth Grand National Championship victory. Graham's second-place finish moved him into the Camel Pro Series points lead 10 over sixlh-place finisher Randy Goss, but by only one point, 159 to 158, with those figures being unofficial due to Goss' Sacramento Mile protest. While Graham moved into the point lead, Parker strengthened his fifth-place position with his lhirdplace finish, and Shobert boosted his fourth place in lhe point standings by 20 points and closed to within five points of third place which belongs to Jay Springsteen. Springsteen was fast qualifier and finished second to Graham in the first heat, but prior to the heat race he fdt sick and he eventuall scratched from the main event when the undiagnosed i1Jness which has sidelined him so often over the past several years struck again. Shobert's first National win had come at this same event, exactly one year ago to the day. "The first one is always great, but this one is special because my parents and grandparents were here to see it," said Shobert after the race. Runner-up Graham, when asked how he and his fellow competitors could race so close at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, answered, "What you saw were professional racers. As close as we were all race long, it's a good thing we're all professionals." While lhe finish saw the top three finishers cross the line as one, earlier laps had seen as man as five riders £1 in around the mile oval side by side and wheel to wheel in front of the field. Time Trial. Three-timeGrand ational Champion Jay Springsteen posted the fasttest qualifying lap aboard his Bill Werner-tuned factory Harley-Davidson XR750. Springsteen's 117.1106 second lap was no threat to Hank Scott's 115.2811 record lap, but it did earn Jay the pole for the first heat. Steve Morehead had the second fastest time, a 117.457 lap on his Carl Patrick Racing XR750. Rounding out the top five qualifiers were Gary Scott, Honda's Terry Poovey and Graham. Tammy Kirk proved her Knoxville performance, which earned her the distinction of being the first female to qualify for a dirt track National, was for real as she posted sixth fastest time, a 117.595 lap. Honda's Hank Scott, Alex Jorgensen, Scott Parker and Dave Hebb rounded out the top 10 qualifiers. Cutoff time for the 48-rider field was 118.897 and that was turned in by Phil Darcy. Heats Graham and his Tex Peel-tuned XR750 pulled the holeshot at the start of the first of four lO-lap heat races, but Springsteen pulled the first drafting pass of the night as the field thundered down the long backstraight, and it was Springer leading Shobert and Graham across the line at the end of the opening lap. The trio passed and repassed one another with Graham leading at the completion of the second lap and Shobert at the front at the end of lap ~ree. The third lap marked the end of the race of Dan Ingram, who was racing in front of a hometown crowd. Ingram, who had made his first trip to a Camel Pro Series winner's circle with a third place finish at Knoxville the weekend before, crashed in turn three, but escaped injury. Graham and Springsteen soon pulled away from Shobert and the field and staged their own race until the seventh lap when Graham took the lead for good. The defending Grand National Champion took the win by a comfortable margin over Spring- Unlike the first heat that saw three diHerent riders lead across the start/ finish tine, the second heat was led from green light to checkered £lag by Dave Hebb and his Skeeter Lehnhausen-tuned Team Grayboy XR750. No one came close to Hebb after he pulled a holeshot at the start and that even surprised him. "While it amaz.es.. me, it feels great!" said Hebb. ''I'm in the National and that's what counts." While Hebb was running away with the win, the battle for second and third was furious and involved Goss, Chuck Springsteen, Jimmy Filice, Jon Cornwell and Tammy Kirk in the early laps. Goss broke out of that pack to secure second for good on the fifth lap, and Canadian Cornwell and his Fred Deeley Imports XR750 took third away from Filice and his Jack Sturgis/Eddie Atkins XR750 on the final lap. The lineup for the third heat had the Scott brothers, Gary and Hank, starting side-by-side, but Hank's Honda RS750 refused to start despite the attention of numerous Honda mechanics. Hank was forced to scratch and alternate John Cooper was called to the grid, much to tbe dismay of the large Honda entourage which included several Honda Racing Corporation executives who bad £Iown in from Japan for this event. "We're really not sure, but we think it was ignition failure," said an obviously disappointed Gene 'Romero, who heads up Honda's dirt track team. "It was going hap-hapbap like Bultacos used to do. But you could get a Bul running by running it. around in a circle at an angle; that didn't work for us. We pulled the plugs and they were dry as a bone, so we guess it's the ignition." The first attempted start saw Tim Mertens get sent to the penalty line after he jumped the start. A second . attempt saw Mertens joined by Matt Rozowicz, Bill Wiebler and Cooper. Eric Rausch led the field into tum one when the race finally startedcleanly, but it was Rodney Farris who led the field across the line at the completion of the first lap. Farris repeated that move on the second lap, but he had six riders right on his heels. Rausch led Ted Boody, Farris, Gary Scott, Mertens, SleVe Eklund and Sammy Sweet across the line at the end of lap three, but the next lap saw Scott at the front of the pack. The halfway £lags were seen first by Scott and he opened up some ground on Boody over the remaining five laps and went on to win with Boody taking an equaJly secure second. The fight for third went right down to the wire where Mertens nipped Farris by inches. "It was scary on those opening laps," said former Grand National Champion Gary Scott in describing the wheel-to-wheel racing. "It felt good to break away from all that and win." The fourth and final heat was led off the line by Alex Jorgensen, who had missed the previous Saturday night's Knoxville Half Mile due to a foot injury suffered in the Santa Fe TT. Jorgy was dropped to third on the second lap by Garth Brow and Bryan Hardin. Hardin was making his Expert debut after a sensational stint as a Junior class rider. The highly touted Michigan rider was aboard a Jimmy Clarke-tuned XR750 spOnsored bv

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